To promote products and generate sales, typically “brick and mortar” types of retail environments utilize floor and shelf space to display products to potential consumers. This type of display marketing helps promote the sales of the displayed products because potential customers can both see and interact with the actual products.
Unfortunately, the floor and shelf space in “brick and mortar” types of retail environments is often limited so potential customers often only see a portion of the potential products which are available for purchase. This is particularly problematic for the sale of larger sized products, such as appliances or lawn tractors, which take up substantial amounts of floor space and often have a variety of different options, colors, and finishes. As a result, sales of products which may have been generated if the products had been on the floor are lost because the potential customers are either uncomfortable purchasing the products without actually seeing and interacting with them or are just unaware of the availability of those products for sale.
Additionally, in these “brick and mortar” types of retail environments the cost of the floor and shelf space can be expensive so retailers must be selective on the particular types and models of products they can display. Again, without the products on display on the sales floor, sales of the products which are not on display often are lost.
Some retailers have tried to address this dilemma through the use of internet web sites and/or in-store kiosks where additional types and models of products are on display. These internet web sites and kiosks are helpful in generating additional sales revenue, but unfortunately the displays on the internet and kiosks provide limited, if any, interaction with the products and components of the products so potential customers do not gain much of an appreciation of how the products and particular parts of the products look and operate. Additionally, these internet web-sites and kiosks do not display the products in a life-sized, interactive format which further limits any true visual appreciation the potential customer might obtain about how the products work and operate. Further, in the case of internet web sites, these still do not address the dilemma faced by potential customers that are not shopping on-line, but instead still just walk into the retail environment and again are only exposed to the limited selection of all of the possible products.